Ian Cushing

A court has ruled that the government's authoritarian ban on Palestine Action was unlawful.

Time to stop criminalising the people protesting a genocide - and start ending the UK's complicity.

in this blog i outline the theory of change for linguistic justice in schools that i am working with and hoping to develop as part of my Leverhulme Trust @leverhulme.ac.uk project, beginning in the autumn 💜

Calling all researchers and practitioners in multilingual education. RJME would love to see your work! Check out Rjme.org to see the range of pieces we're interested in (we accept a variety of formats). Feel free to reach out to me or the other co-editors with questions! @rjme-journal.bsky.social

i was one of the linguists who wrote an expert report for this case. it is another example - and it will not be the last - of how anti-Black linguistic racism is an institutional design feature of the police, and how some language practices get persistently framed as signs of criminality.

i am pleased to add my voice to this article which calls out the disappointing but not at all surprising lack of diversity in the people who are designing the new national curriculum content.

Concerns over make-up of curriculum drafters group Leaders criticise 'lack of diversity and representation' among experts helping to write new curriculum

Sector leaders have criticised the 'limited breadth and diversity' of experts recruited to help write the new national curriculum

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/concerns-over-make-up-of-curriculum-drafters-group/

#parentalengagement Stop it with the 'word gap' argument and ideology. Yes, I've used it in the past - I was wrong.
Don't judge parents on the basis of heavily critiqued research. Instead, read this...
ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... Thanks to @iancushing.bsky.social

White System, Black Therapist: Racism, Resistance and Reimagining Speech and Language Therapy In this book, Warda Farah brings a fresh perspective to the field of Speech and Language Therapy, challenging traditional approaches and opening crucial conversations about race, culture, and neurodiv...

www.routledge.com/White-System...

The Palestinianisation of American civil society is now well underway

Without justice for Palestine and an end to Apartheid there is no hope for an end to the imprisonment without trial of 5 year olds in the US. The apparatus is the same - tested in Gaza and The illegally occupied West Bank

Debbie was an inspiration to me. Just this morning I was reading a new chapter of hers. She was supportive on so many levels. She wrote an endorsement for my book. Her work on verbal hygiene was one of the reasons I decided to study linguistics at university. She will be massively missed ❤️

New publication alert! Out article 'Big Impact or No Advantage? Raciolinguistic Framings in Australian Media Coverage of Young People's Multilingualism' is now available in early online view in the Journal of Sociolinguistics @jslx.bsky.social 🧵

Frey: I have a message for ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis

Although a white woman was killed, remember that ICE was in Minneapolis because a MAGA agitator stirred up racist myths about Black immigrants committing fraud and Trump latched on to it to appease his base and distract from his failures as president. Structural racism means violence for everyone.

NEW: ‘These reforms have teeth’: The affective dimensions of teacher education policy enactment - British Educational Research Journal bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

new article in British Educational Research Journal: bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/.... we ran focus groups with 42 teacher educators in England, showing how recent teacher education policy reforms are a system of administrative compliance which governs through fear and control.

Teaching Liz Berry's 'Homing' in the Black Country Reflections on the impact of letting students hear themselves in literature

I've done a blog on some work we've been doing with year 11s in the Black Country about the poem 'Homing' and the dialect of the area.
englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/teachin...

lectureship in applied linguistics in my department. lovely city, lovely department, lovely colleagues 🌸 manmetjobs.mmu.ac.uk/jobs/vacancy...

@joannagavins.bsky.social ! 🌸

And many congratulations to all, with a special shout out to @iancushing.bsky.social @callanjd.bsky.social and @noreenmasud.bsky.social #LanguagesandLiteratures 💫🎉👏🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

it is a basic fact that all children have remarkable linguistic heterogeneity, but not all children are granted the space to use this heterogeneity in schools. so the problem is clearly not in how children use language, but in how schools are often set up to deny children those opportunities.

Change starts here Join over 500,000,000 people creating real change in their communities.

Staggering harm is being done to #language learning in Higher Ed. No oversight or strategic thinking, with cold spots now present. Petitions alone this week in response to closures:

Nottingham · Change.org
Leicester · Change.org

#edusky #langsky @britishacademy.bsky.social @hetanshah.bsky.social

it’s so cool there were so many students and teachers there :) I know Julia loved that !

it was such a privilege to be in Leeds tonight for @snelljulia.bsky.social’s inaugural lecture! for over 20 years she has challenged deficit thinking about working class children’s language. im so honoured to know her and collaborate with her and have her as a friend 🌸

the curriculum and assessment review is 197 pages long and does not make a single reference to multilingualism. in England's schools, ~20% of children (~2 million children) are multilingual. this is just another example of how multilingual identities and knowledges get erased in policy and practice.

the DfE have responded enthusiastically to the curriculum and assessment review, stating that oracy is an 'important vehicle for social justice'. so more reproduction of this flawed theory of change which isolates 'better oracy' as a solution to injustice.
doi.org/10.1080/0305...

solidarity with all colleagues and students at Nottingham who are having their jobs and degrees destroyed by management. the relentless annihilation of language provision in UKHE is something that *every* academic should be calling out and pushing back against.

I am hearing that @uniofnottingham.bsky.social is suspending (i.e shutting down) *all modern language courses* in 2026-27. One of the largest departments in the UK. A shocking short sighted move that damages regional and national prospects @britishacademy.bsky.social @hetanshah.bsky.social

Zohran Mamdani Just Gave American Politics a Raciolinguistic Reality Check Zohran Mamdani just won the New York City mayoral race, and it’s a big deal for reasons that will no doubt be dissected for years to come. But what really stands out to me is how this moment shifts…

"He essentially said, 'I’m not going to hide who I am to make you comfortable.' In doing so Mamdani delivered a raciolinguistic reality check that refuses the idea that politicians of color need to translate themselves into whiteness to be viable."

educationallinguist.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/z...

we need linguistic borders NOW

Former detective exposes culture of disability discrimination within ‘institutionally disablist’ Met A culture of institutional disability discrimination within the Metropolitan police is exposed today by the former head of its disabled staff association. Dave Campbell, who retired this year after…

A culture of institutional disability discrimination within the Metropolitan police is exposed today by the former head of its disabled staff association.
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/former-detec...